Pay gap helps women find good husbands: Republican activist

The Republican Party in Congress, under the aegis of such lawmakers as Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., has sought to appear as fighters for women’s equality and refute Democrats’ potent 2012 battle cry of a GOP “war on women.”

Phyllis Schlafly, founder of the Republican National Coalition for Life and head of the Eagle Forum, March, 2012. (Brendan Smialowski / Getty Images)

But a veteran party leader and anti-feminist Republican has come up with a new argument: Women should accept lower pay as the price of finding a good husband.

She is Phyllis Schlafly, who successfully mobilized opposition to the federal Equal Rights Amendment, organized the Republican National Coalition for Life, served as a Republican Platform Committee member, and headed the Eagle Forum. She has been a GOP activist for 60 years.

In an op-ed piece for the Christian Post, Schlafly makes the case against equal pay:

“Another fact is the influence of hypergamy, which means that women typically choose a mate (husband or boyfriend) who earns more than she does. Men don’t have the same preference for a higher-earning mate.

“While women prefer to HAVE a higher-earning partner, men generally prefer to BE the higher earning partner in a relationship. This simple but profound difference between the sexes has powerful consequences for the so-called pay gap.

“Suppose the pay gap between men and women were magically eliminated. If that happened, simple arithmetic suggests that half of women would be unable to find what they regard as a suitable mate.

“Obviously, I’m not saying women won’t date or marry a lower-earning man, only that they probably prefer not to. If a higher-earning man is not available, many women are more likely not to marry at all . . .

“The best way to improve economic prospects for women is to improve job prospects for the men in their lives, even if that means increasing the so-called pay gap.”

President Obama was elected, in both 2008 and 2012, by building a double-digit lead among women voters. Post-2012, the Republican National Committee published a how-we-came-up-short analysis that promised to “address concerns that are on women’s minds in order to let them know we are fighting for them.”

Schlafly is herself a lawyer, a product of Radcliffe and Washington University in St. Louis. She married a wealthy St. Louis lawyer, joking that she would cancel a speech when husband Fred said she would be away from the house too long.

In 2007, she told an audience at Bates College: “By getting married, the woman has consented to sex and I don’t think you call it rape.”